Abandoned: MIA in Vietnam

Review by retired US Navy Captain Richard Stratton {former Navy A-4 pilot and Vietnam War POW} on September 4, 2016
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase

A good read. A credible story line. A real world description of Navy and captive life.

I served as a squadron line and maintenance officer on board 27Cs and Range Mouse; so the hangar deck and liberty sequences rang true.

I shared a cell with a sailor that fell off a ship and became a POW. He was listed as a possible suicide; the crew believed he reneged on a gambling debt and was tossed overboard, and the truth was stranger than the fiction. This too rang true.

The cruelty of the NVN captors I experienced from 1967-1969 was inventive. This rang true.

I lived with survivors of the POW marches from SVN to NVN and learned their stories. Too true.

I lived with and shared accounts with CIA/Air America operatives. They were professional scholars and gentlemen, so I don’t know where our author ran into his CIA scoundrels; but I guess every profession has wild hairs. I know mine do - both aviation and social working runs on Hanoi; they were impressive. I cannot begin to imagine the terror of enduring this evolution out in the open. You can sit through the experience with one of the main characters.

I have broken bread with boat people survivors of SVN “re-education camps” (Gulags). Their courage, endurance and heroism is inspiring. The author takes you there.

I have stood in the windswept cold of Arlington for the burial of a long time MIA wife who finally found closure with the post-war remains returned from Laos. Our author must have “been there” too.

Bottom line is that should you desire to “experience” the shipboard experience of a white hat, the survival of a POW, and the confusion of friends and families saddled with an open-ended MIA situation, this author will take you on that trip.

I strongly recommend that you spend time with this book.